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Yes, good. Keep that momentum going everyone.
Mat, so pleased for you. If you think you feel better now, imagine how good things can get for you? At least you are giving yourself a chance. With gambling, there is no chance of winning or feeling good in the long run, only false promises, false hope and loans.
John, keep going. Let’s all never give them another penny. I seen on the news that my pen pal ‘friend’ William Hill is in trouble for failing to spot the signs of addiction (same complaint I have ongoing with them) and for failing to prevent money laundering. They turn a blind eye so long as they get hold of your money.
You tell me how responsible it is to let someone deposit thousands in the space of minutes, having taken out multiple time outs to try to control my gambling. It is obvious that you are having problems by the way you are using your account. They know full well that you are addicted and chasing but they are happy to let you bury yourself.
My bank was quick to notice that I was depositing like crazy and gave me a phone call, and I know full well that they know too. My bank was concerned for me, but the gambling industry couldn’t care less. You are just a number, a username. They call you a ‘dear member’ when you are throwing money at them, but when you want to quit, they can’t even be bothered to help you self exclude and instead point you in the direction of the terms and conditions and small print that we should have read when we signed our life away. No wonder they said they were delighted to welcome me back.
Well, I am delighted to see the back of them.
I am never gambling again.

Hi agian can everdody remmeber how much money and time in this horrible gambling lost remmeber and see how much we lost and then you we relised thst horrible time gambling and you wiil never gamble when the agues came i think it is a idea stay away from gambling pls pls pls

Today is 3 weeks when I last gambled, swings of feeling better then worse, any urge I just try of thinking about something else, even if I won I could never stop till I lost it all what’s the point of playing for fun? I don’t think so there are other fun activities like going for a trip even shopping not putting money in a rigged game that was put in place to suck all the remaining money from the people. Each relapse and loss made me feel very bad I couldn’t control myself and that’s sickening.
I am around gamblers and trust me I am not missing out, some of them cant pay rent or buy food while working full time its crazy.
Hope you all stay gamble free for good.

Try to remind yourself of all the good progress you have made in the past and how great this would have made you feel. Do your best to recreate this feeling by leaving gambling alone. Win..lose or lose…win or lose…lose… Or win..win. It’s all gambling. Your time, money and dignity are worth so much more than what the gambling industry is offering you. They give you pain, false hope, seduction, emptiness, self loathing….you and all of us are worth so much much more. We are human and we do struggle with all the temptations the big world can give us….but we have be strong and we have to fight our demons and we have to have strategies in place. I’ve self excluded myself from 90% of the betting shops where I live and I keep to it too and this has saved me lots and lots of my time and money…but that 10% left is the killer. I need to make a choice on what I want…. Me mentally and physically in a better place….less strain on my marriage…I’ve had ultamatums and that’s never nice.

Loser shit you lost money again, why you didn’t self exclude, what about blocking your card, the site didn’t make you gamble its just an excuse, do you still think you will win your money back? not going happen, the wins are only to keep you in the game for longer like a torture. Site is good at least you know you are not alone and others go through same shit, you see we all are losing do you think you can beat the devils wheel or computerised slot, its all fixed bullshit another form of taking the rest of money we have after taxes, council tax and expensive food. Be serious start counting days and you and your bank account will feel better it will take time, or you can choose continue working like a slave to make the casino bosses even richer laughing and drinking cocktails on some exotic beach. God knows what its doing to your health being stressed and sleepless.

Loser, my post to you is a bit further down with Trevors….the top and bottom of it is…you are a gambling addict who is trying to gamble responsibly. It will never work. You see you gamble and you lose and you can’t walk away, you gamble and you win, get a cheque and still you cannot walk away. You see the pattern? It doesn’t matter what happens when you bet, because you will always want to gamble again, be it that same night, or another night.
Each time you gamble, you feed your addiction, WHATEVER the outcome.

I notice a pattern with your gambling relapses, Loser, and I sincerely hope you don’t mind me pointing this out to you, because I think it may help you.
You see, you gamble again and you focus mostly on the fact that you either won or lost money. I don’t think you necessarily see it as relapse, more a case of if you have won or lost. You tend to beat yourself up when you have had a win and managed to get a cheque and then still gone on to lose it, but this is besides the point, Loser. The point is, you gambled again. Nothing else matters and the more you focus on the ins and outs of your relapse, the more you will continue to gamble.
You are so often disappointed that you managed to win, and yet still you went on to lose it where the only thing you should be disappointed in, is the fact that you gambled again.
Do you get what I’m saying? You are still assessing your gambling in terms of money won, or lost when really it needs to be about the way gambling has made you feel. Are you disappointed because you gambled again, or more so, because yet again you couldn’t keep a win?

Addicts cannot go back to gambling for fun, Loser and trying to do so will defeat you and ruin your efforts to ever stop gambling completely. If you want to leave gambling behind then you are going to need to abstain because it is the only way to let your brain recover from all the mixed messages you are giving it about gambling. Those being, ‘gambling is good so long as I win, gambling is bad when I lose’. The message needs to be that gambling is bad full stop. Then you can get your life back again and your savings.

You’re right, Jane. While gambling addiction can cripple us financially, it’s imperative that the addict removes the ‘win’ and ‘loss’ mentality in order to aid our recovery. It’s futile to look at a ‘win’ or ‘loss’ over a short period of time because ultimately the compulsive gambler will lose in the long term – why else would we read and comment on this forum if we hadn’t lost? We also lose more than money – we lose time, we lose our self respect and we lose the ability to feel like a non gambler by craving it’s cluth. Gambling slowly but surely consumes us. It consumes our time, our money and our natural psyche.

Viewing gambling within the context of ‘winning’ and ‘losing’ merely seeks to keep the addict trapped within the vicious gambling cycle. There is no end point within the vicious gambling cycle – so long as we consider that gambling can provide a ‘win’ we will continue to go round and round and round this vicious cycle.

Loser, it’s time to break free from the cycle. You have a tremendous amount of knowledge on gambling addition which you kindly share with the forum on a regular basis. You have shared interesting and well informed information about the brain activity of the compulsive gambler. While i fully endorse short term measures which prohibit the addict from gambling (not carrying cash/ self excluding from a particular site or venue/ letting someone look afternour cash), these measures are unfortunately what they are – short term. We need to see the bigger picture, we need to adopt an attitude of ‘thank goodness i don’t have to gamble’ as opposed to ‘I’ve not got access to cash so i can’t gamble’. Until we remove the tug of war mentality, a part of our mind will perceive gambling in a positive light and we’ll continue to crave it. I truly believe that you can break free from the cycle.

Duncan, it is always a pleasure to hear from you. How are you? I hope you got through the dark, winter months okay. Spring is on the way, and with it, the bright longer days with plenty to do and places to go. I very much look forward to the freedom that the good weather brings and also, I look forward to having my mind my own again, now that I have let go of gambling. It is actually a sweet relief in a way. That’s how I feel about gambling now. I don’t miss it. I feel glad that I don’t have to do it anymore.

I did try to gamble responsibly for such a long time, but it only ever worked when things went my way. If I lost, then all the control was lost with it. When I was winning, I had the illusion of control and all it did was weaken me and set me up for a bad fall, when the luck inevitably ran out.
I do believe that trying to gamble responsibly, while still a positive step in the right direction, keeps the tug of war mentality alive because it allows you to keep your ties with gambling. Gambling remains very much on your mind and people tend to make more allowances for their gambling, maybe even gambling as a treat, or a reward because they have gone without it for a period of time. I certainly had this mentality for a while. I felt that a two week break entitled me to a little go when the time-out expired. It just didn’t work and I don’t think it works for many people in the long run, not addicts anyway. It seems backwards to reward yourself with the same thing you want to cut out your life, doesn’t it, but I guess this represents the phase where you’re just not ready to let go.

My last relapse was horrible but I am still grateful for the lesson. I feel that I needed the reminder, and I am only grateful that I still had a cut off point, although I wish it were a little less than 3 grand! I could have done much more damage, but I threw the last few hundred at the loss with a sort of petulant ‘don’t give it me then’ attitude. I think I accepted quickly that I wasn’t going to get the money back and was able to let it be. I wanted to throw enough at the loss, but not enough to cripple me, just enough to make a dent big enough to walk away from. I’m not really sure what the mentality is with that, but I think at the time, I wanted to either get the money back or feel it enough to never want to do it again.
I guess I wanted to go out with a bang, and I feel that I did that, so good riddance to gambling and onward we march, a little stronger and a lot wiser.
Take care, Duncan

Thanks for your reply, Jane. I’m well thanks and still gamble free. I’ve found this winter easier to manage than last as I’ve taken comfort from remainimg gamble free over the winter of 16 – 17.

A lot of my friends still gamble regularly which I’ve found difficult to deal with in the past. However, i now find that being in the company of friends who gamble helps to reaffirm my commitment to life as a non gambler. In the past i used to be envious of these friends as i felt i was missing out, however, watching their behaviour and emotional state when they gamble now helps me. It amazes me how distant they can become and it reminds me of how detached I was, emotionally, from friends and family when i gambled.

Thoughts of gambling do not consume my mind like they once did, however, there are still occasions, particularly when I’m watching a sporting event, when my thoughts turn to gambling. This is just part of the compulsive gambler in me, however, my education on the addiction, along with the progress that i have made, makes it a lot easier to rationalise and manage such situations.

I do not read the forum as regularly as I once did but still ‘check in’ to continue to educate myself as well as seeing how everyone is getting on.

I can certainly see how being around other gamblers would be difficult in the early days and how you might feel you are missing out. I am glad that this now seems to help you because it helps justify your decision to remain a non gambler.
I suppose it’s much like drinking. When you are out with friends and you’re all drinking, you don’t see the way you behave, because you’re all doing the same thing. But when you’re out with them and you’re the only one who is on the Cokes, then you can see the difference in their behavior in ways that you don’t see when you are drinking alongside them.
I have seen therapists using this kind of treatment, getting family and friends to record their loved ones under the influence of gambling, drugs, or drinking as a way of showing them the way they change when they are doing it.
All I know is I just want normal life back, having spent the last 7 or so years trying to escape it. You may think you have problems and you gamble to escape them, but then gambling becomes the real problem and you can spend the rest of your life trying to get back what you had before, and I’m not talking money.
The horrible unpredictability and instability that a life of gambling creates makes the normal, everyday life look like a picnic in the park, and it is something I very much look forward to.
When gamblers come to realise that they’re not missing out, it is such a wonderful thing.
Take care, Duncan and do check in from time to time. You continue to be such an inspiration to so many people on this site, and remind us all that it is possible to leave this misery behind.

Sorry to hear that your nephew has been ill and the reason why. Life is hard enough without having to fight off an addiction…as we all have witnessed regularly. Im sure he will pull through it all. From my own experience it isnt easy be open with friends and family about addiction, but it a very important starting block to a good recovery no matter if the openess wasnt planned.

I had a relapse on Saturday that peeved me off, but just need to keep focused on the positive things in life. …family, friends, and doing positive activities. When youve got some notes in your wallet or purse things always seem brighter and can treat yourself to nice things; or cope with some unexpected bill/cost without letting it get to you.

Im so pleased the savings i do have are in a joint account with my wife…both to sign off to access the funds. Definitely recommend a joint account.

Still need to get a modest holiday arranged this year….any ideas….. wife wants to go abroad….but still not cheap in the UK and weather very unpredictable. So maybe spain. …or leaf peeping in my garden…had to get that in….sorry.

Sorry to hear that, Trevor. Relapse is difficult and affects all of us from time to time. It can make us stronger and more determined or it can make us feel defeated and demoralised. It is important not to let it get to you and to see the relapse in perspective. This can take time and it certainly does for me.
The problem with counting our days is that when we go back to day 1, it gives the impression that we have lost all our progress and that we have gone backwards. This is not really the case. I think it is far better to look at it as gambling one day out of say, 10 or however long you have gone. That way, the one slip doesn’t look half as bad against all the days you didn’t gamble.
If you are struggling with the idea of relapse, and feeling like you have lost progress, draw up a chart of when you started counting your days again and put a red cross in each box that you didn’t gamble, just leave the relapse day blank. That way, you can see how well you really were doing, Trevor and you won’t lose motivation.
A holiday is a great way to focus on something positive. Luckily for my budget, I enjoy the unpredictable weather here, so I have my 2 weeks booked for a British caravan holiday.
I may well get across the pond again, to Ireland if the funds allow. It is very important to be motivated and have a goal and something to aim for. A holiday is also a great way to show you that things are improving financially and give you something to make you realise what is possible if you stop gambling.
Thank you for your concern for my nephew. Luckily, it was not his turn to drive. Sometimes they swap and take turns to drive to the different locations they are sent to for work, so we have that to be grateful for.
Addiction is horrible whatever it is. It’s weird that I can see the stupidity in people getting into drugs but failed to see my own when it came to gambling.

—-Loser, surely you don’t believe in jinx? Posting your days on the site is not making you relapse. We have no say in whether you go to the casino or not, but you do. I think that you would have gone to the casino with or without posting your days, because whether you post or not, it is just a matter of time before you want to gamble again, just like it is for the rest of us. It is the casino you need to stay away from Loser, not Rethink. You must accept that when you gamble, you are choosing to gamble. Despite your addiction, you have a choice. If you don’t believe this then you will not be able to stop.

These two scenarios are the same…

You win, you take the cheque and you walk out = relapse
You win, you take the cheque, you gamble again and you lose it = relapse
Both actually equal a loss because you gambled again. That’s how you have to look at it.

Forget the ins and outs of your relapse Loser, it will only keep you gambling. Relapse is relapse, win or lose. Winning is walking away. Now get back on track.
I really wish you well, Loser. Keep posting and keep trying. x

Kate, your flare comment tickled me! I think abstaining from this site is just as difficult for me as staying away from gambling. Nephew doing okay. He is stable and I had a chat with him. He is obviously scared now that it is all going to come out, but it might be just what he needs. He was very reluctant to go to the doctors and talk about his addiction and worried that he couldn’t afford time off work for rehab, what with the debt.
Now, he is being forced to seek help, so despite the circumstances, that’s still a good thing.

Ooh, that reminds me, Kate, don’t know why cos it’s not related…..but I got my £12 back from Tesco but no apology, they just credited it to my statement. Well, actually it was £12 and a packet of 6 tomatoes on the vine. Difficulty scanning. #vengeance. That will teach them to mess with me. I’ll sit and wait for the shares to plummet now. #muahaha

Loser, Joanne, Mat, Andy…..hope you are all well. You’ve all gone quiet too. Perhaps we should get the box of flares out, Kate?

Ben, Day 1 is hard, but it is better to be on day 1 and be making a change, than to keep gambling and face each day never knowing how it will end. Isn’t there enough uncertainty in life?

Just took a phone call from my sis. She don’t tend to ring me so it’s usually something negative when she does. Last time she rung me, it was to tell me mum had fallen and smashed her shoulder 6 months ago. Today, it is to tell me that her son, my nephew has had 2 seizures. He has been abusing drugs for some time now, as you may well remember and has been dabbling since he was about 13 to be honest.
It has grown from cigarettes when he was 11 to taking weed, now it is cocaine. He was on his way to work in a group van when he had one in the back of the van and one again in hospital. He’s doing okay but is worried that work will know about his drug problem now. He is in a world of debt for a young lad, because of his drug habit, and struggled very much since he had a bad break up with his girlfriend who had settled him down, somewhat.
Thing is, he works with heavy machinery. It is dangerous outside work, up trees, cutting, felling, trimming…that sort of thing. If he loses his job, he will seriously struggle. It worries me that he is more concerned about his job than addressing what years of drugs have done to him, but it is because he has little support from his family and I have been trying to support him as best I can, but not with money, just with food parcels as he has been going hungry, buying drugs and not eating. It is such a horrible life and he feels so trapped. His sister gives him money but he just buys more drugs, even though he genuinely asked for it for food. it controls him and we all know that feeling well.

Hopefully, this will be enough to make him stop now. A serious wake up call. I wish we could all leave these dangerous addictions behind before it goes too far, but the trouble is, we coast along don’t we? We don’t see the harm in another relapse, because well, it’s just another relapse. People with addiction can systematically hurt themselves and become numb to the pain. It becomes usual to feel bad, to feel low and to self loathe.
How can people strive to feel better when they have become accustomed to feeling bad for years, especially when they are the ones who have been hurting themselves?

I think we all need a shock to make us wake up. That’s the sorry thing about addiction, be it gambling, or drugs or whatever….we invite so much pain into our lives and it just becomes normal to feel low. People cannot break free from the cycle because they can’t see any way out. It’s all they know. It’s all they expect.

50 days for me now!
Actually had slight thoughts over the weekend that a little flutter wouldn’t do any harm, but of course it would, it would mean I had ruined my thus far gamble free year.
Fortunately I stayed resolute and the thoughts soon went away again, but it shows even when you are winning the battle and even think you might have won the war, you always have to be on your guard.
Stay strong everyone.
Let ‘em starve!

Yes, it is a constant battle, Nik. After the smoke clears from our recent relapse, we may think the enemy has gone. It is no longer obvious anymore, what we are fighting. We may not even recognise the enemy when we see it. It sneaks up on us, disguised as a friend that we haven’t seen for a while.
Don’t let your guard down. It’s like how they describe it in Behind Enemy Lines, a seriously cool movie that still holds up well after all these years….
Whenever you’re on the ship, you’re at war, whether you’re at sea or sitting in the harbour. The everyday routine can get to us, and we want that hit of excitement. But that excitement comes at a high price so be careful what you wish for. Enjoy the basics and don’t fight the everyday normality, because it’s not boring, it’s actually the peace time we really need.

Hey, everyone. Good to see people are still going strong. Hello again John and hi Jeffrey.

Day 27 for me. Seems very little since I should be hitting 6 months now if it weren’t for that latest blip. Still, I have got to move on. No urges for me which has been very positive. I think I got rid of all my urges in the first two weeks when I was plagued with wanting to win back my losses.
I’m glad I stayed away though, cos I would more than likely be feeling crap right now, even if I was winning because that’s what gambling does to you. It always makes me feel controlled and volatile. Even when I was having a winning streak for several months, I still felt awful because it was like I was waiting to be shot, knowing that eventually my head was gonna be on that block. It’s only ever a matter of when, not if. Losing is inevitable. The more you play, the more you lose.

Not been doing so great with all the news lately. I keep changing the channel. It’s become very difficult for me with all the talk of abuse lately. It’s one scandal after another. Although it’s good that people talk about it, it is making me feel a bit negative so I am keeping away.
I’m getting myself a tattoo and I’m thinking what to have. I’ve always wanted one, nothing big or crass, just a nice vine or ivy maybe, something natural and delicate. Just thought I’d share that with you!

I’m still in contact with William Hill over my complaint for letting me gamble and lose money when I had expressed a gambling problem with them on several occasions. I had no working phone at the time, and was literally unable to get thought to them on live chat. I kept being cut out of the queue, so I asked them on email if they would exclude me to protect me, because I didn’t want to go near my account to time out because I was worried that if I did, that I would just end up gambling again. They said they couldn’t self exclude me this way, and I didn’t want to time out because I saw it as a cop out, something that I would just let expire, then gamble again, so I wanted to do it permanently.
I have been able to self exclude by basic email for all my other accounts but William Hill made it a deliberately evasive process and forced me to use live chat to self exclude. I don’t see it as very useful to make a person use the one thing they are trying to avoid in order to protect themselves.

I grew weak and gambled just like I thought I would, instead of excluding like I intended to, because I had to sit for half an hour, looking at gambling stimulus while I waited to get through to someone. My complaint was heard by several different people and has steadily gone up the ranks as the week’s gone on.
I managed to speak to the executive relations manager by email and had the delight in telling him what I think of the whole industry. I don’t care about getting any money back, I’m just enjoying pushing their buttons! They were delighted to communicate with me when I was giving them my money. They played their part in making me an addict, and they chose to ignore the signs of an addicted person, while I was lining their pockets.

When I asked for help, they failed to support me. Now that I want to stop gambling, they don’t want to communicate with me anymore. What a surprise. They gave me some crap about self exclusion and that I agreed to the terms and conditions when I made the account. I told him that reading the terms and conditions is not really the main priority for an addicted gambler and that they shove whatever they want in the small print in order to free themselves of any responsibility.
After all, it’s not their fault because they did tell me to gamble responsibly.

Hi John
Good to hear from you, although sorry to hear you are back to the starting blocks. I remember 43! This was before I took up gambling …… I turn 60 this year – a late starter sadly but hopefully now stopped for good. I bet there are lots of women like me who took up gambling online directly as a result of the availability ……it’s a shocker in my opinion. 10 months gamble free. #nevertoolatetogetyouracttogether

Good to hear you are doing OK Jane …I was going to send up a mini-flare today to see how you were doing. Stay strong all

Hi everbody who are you all i still sometimes gambling but not much like before and i going to stop today agian try not to gamble any wasted money gambling is dangerous you start with some amout of money and casing your money back so we all try to not niether some small bets becouse they grow up i told you last time that i gambleded about€350 000 00 in 5 years that gamble who its work stay away from gambling jane trevor mat joneaoe and all other that are nee in this site i will star tk post agian day one for me

I hope you start feeling better soon and I’m sure the avoidance of a relapse will help. It sounds like the peace of mind and health benefits you were hoping to have with 15 days of a abstance has not been revealed…please hang in there I am sure you will see the benefits soon.

Work for me is an important part of my routine of life and it’s very busy at work which helps me focus on work and no day dreaming. Then unwinding at home is also important. Like others have said we need to focus on positive activities to keep our mind active and happy. I like jigsaws, watching movies, cinemas, eating out and spending time with the misses. Plus there are the mundane tasks but they serve a purpose too….tidying the home up, me doing the ironing, diy jobs, emptying the dishwasher….The purpose is that you can see result after the work and it’s a job off the list….It’s a positive achievement.

As you know relapses could aggravate your health so please do your best to abstain.

Jane its a long road to recovery, not really happy I do get those headaches and stomach problems all the time, I feel so stressed right now and anxious that feeling before the exam or gambling, 15 days seems not enough I used to gamble for so many years my mind is messed up, I just sit now and have no motivation to do anything just force myself to work. I need to get away from it all. You should get away too, sitting here and counting days plus constant pressure from debt reminders is very depressing and it can drive you crazy and make you relapse.
Gambling is just lies some gamble to make money and some to escape and thrill but it does opposite effect it will take everything you have and enslave your mind.

Mat, yes it is such a long road and sometimes it feels like going round in circles, especially when we mess up. It is hard to erase all the years of gambling, it affects your mind over time and changes your personality. People become dead inside and need to gamble more and more to feel okay again, but it just does the opposite as you say.
Happiness is a bit of a stretch, yes, but maybe we can just get by with being okay. I believe we will be happy again, Mat, so long as we leave gambling behind. Remember your promise to yourself, no more gambling. However bad you feel now, you will feel worse if you gamble again, even if you win. Please remember that, when you feel unsettled and lack motivation.
What you said the other day was good advice, when you get the urge, just distract yourself and go do something else, watch a movie, or get something to eat, or exercise. If we let the urge to gamble plant a seed in our brain, it grows and then we feed it with relapse.

15 days may not be a lot compared to how long you have gambled for, and how long you have gone without gambling in the past, but it is a good start. All good things start small, Mat and if you continue to save your hard earned money, and concentrate on feeling good inside, you will start to believe that it is possible to be happy again and you won’t want to mess that up. 15 days is also more than you have managed to go lately, so why throw that progress away. It is also good to see you actually counting the days and focusing on your recovery rather than your circumstances. I am guilty of dwelling on the negatives too, but trying to remain focused will help you stay positive.
Why gamble and risk losing a load more money, or winning and risk feeling crap again a week later when you lose it again. Don’t put yourself in that position where the industry can play you.

Gambling thrives on discontentment and negativity so try to remain positive. Just remember to measure how well you are doing, not by your days, but how you feel each day. Each day matters so don’t mess it up. All we have to do is wake up, keep busy, stay focused, and go to bed having not gambled. We do that for 7 days and we’ve gone a week, for 30 days and we’ve gone a month and we just keep going until we forget we ever had this sick addiction.